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By Ellie Cook
Senior Defense Reporter
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Ukraine used long-range weapons, including cruise missiles provided by the West, to strike Russian positions in the east of the country, new footage appears to show, as Moscow advances toward a crucial Ukrainian city.
Ukraine's military said on Saturday that it had "successfully hit" three Russian command posts using British- and French-made cruise missiles and guided multiple-launch rocket systems.
The cruise missiles are made jointly by the U.K.—which refers to them as Storm Shadow—and France, where they are known as SCALP.
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The command centers belonged Russia's 35th and 27th separate motorized rifle brigades and the 2nd Combined Arms Army, Kyiv said. The damage and casualties were not clear.
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Newsweek has reached out to the Russian Defense Ministry for comment via email.
Britain's Sky News shared footage on Friday purportedly showing the attack, attributing it to an anonymous Ukrainian security source. The source told the outlet that the clip showed strikes on two Russian command centers for "massive troops formations slowly advancing on Pokrovsk."
Russia has long been driving west in Ukraine's Donetsk region, one of the Kremlin's main priority areas along the hundreds of miles of front lines.
Moscow captured Avdiivka, a former Ukrainian stronghold on the outskirts of the Russian-controlled regional capital, Donetsk City, in February this year after a bitter, monthslong offensive.
The Ukrainian attack happened at around 11 a.m. on Friday in Avdiivka, Sky News reported. An open-source intelligence account, posting to social media, said it had geolocated the strike to railway and concrete-making facilities in Avdiivka.
The U.S.-based think tank, the Institute for the Study of War (ISW), which tracks daily changes to the front lines, told Newsweek this summer that between February and August 2024, Russia had been advancing roughly two square kilometers each day to the west of Avdiivka, toward the Ukrainian-held Donetsk logistics hub of Pokrovsk.
Before capturing Avdiivka, Moscow advanced around 0.2 square kilometers a day in the area, the ISW said at the time.
Angelica Evans, a Russia researcher with the ISW, told Newsweek that Russia's advances would "likely slow" as Moscow neared Pokrovsk and once again faced more residential and built-up areas.
Pokrovsk has been referred to as a "fortress" settlement, key to Ukrainian defenses in the east and connected to other critical defensive cities, like Sloviansk, Kramatorsk, Druzhkivka, and Kostiantynivka.
The ISW said in its latest analysis, published on Sunday, that Russia had recently advanced southeast of Pokrovsk, including along a country road close to the settlement of Novohrodivka.
Ukraine's military said on Monday morning that it had "repelled" 21 Russian attacks close to Pokrovsk, including around Myrnohrad to its east. The most intense attacks were southeast of the key city, near the settlements of Selydove and Krutyi Yar, Kyiv's armed forces said.
Russia said on Monday that its forces had captured Hrodivka, a settlement northeast of Krutyi Yar and to the east of Pokrovsk.
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